Contents

Originally considered for Gladys Knight & the Pips and later for Diana Ross, as "I Wanna Be Free", "I Want You Back" explores the theme of a lover who decides that he was too hasty in dropping his partner. An unusual aspect about "I Want You Back" was that its main lead vocal was performed by a preteen, Michael Jackson.

Although Gladys Knight and Bobby Taylor of the Vancouvers had been the ones to bring the Jackson brothers to Motown[citation needed], Motown credited Ross with discovering them, not only to help promote the Jackson 5, but also to help ease Ross' transition into a solo career.[citation needed], a career begun soon after the Jackson 5 became a success.

The Jackson 5 performed "I Want You Back" during all of their world tours, either as a full song or as a part of the Jackson 5 Medley in concerts (which also included "ABC" and "Mama's Pearl", later on switched with "The Love You Save" in 1973). During their second-ever television appearance (in an episode of The Hollywood Palace hosted by Diana Ross & the Supremes),[7] the Jackson 5 performed "I Want You Back" along with Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song," The Delfonics' "Can You Remember," and James Brown's "There Was a Time".

After leaving the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson performed the song as part of his "Jackson 5 Medley" (which also included the songs "The Love You Save" and "I'll Be There") during all of his world tours: the Bad World Tour, the Dangerous World Tour, and the HIStory World Tour (the song also had been scheduled to be performed during the "Jackson 5 Medley" portion of Michael Jackson's This Is It concerts, which never occurred due to his death). The last time the song was performed live was during the Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Special, which was also the first time the Jackson 5 had performed together since 1984.

In 2006, Pitchfork Media named it the second best song of the 1960s, adding that the chorus contains "possibly the best chord progression in pop music history."[10] A June 2009 article by The Daily Telegraph called it "arguably the greatest pop record of all time".[11]